Valley Of The Kings Premium Edition Review

Crumbling Pyramids and Eerie Tombs

The two games do also possess key differences in their gameplay, this is not a case of identical games with different themes. Valley of the Kings succeeds indirectly linking its theme to gameplay in a more noticeable way than Dominion. The key to this success is the crumbling pyramid system.  The pyramid is the name given to the pool of cards that players can purchase. However, unlike Dominion’s piles of cards, the pyramid is laid out with three cards at the bottom, two in the middle and one at the top. This set up is far from just cosmetic, as players can only buy cards from the bottom of the pyramid, to begin with. When a card is purchased, the cards from the upper levels of the pyramid crumble down to fill the empty spaces below. The top is then replenished with more valuable cards.

This means that tight planning and opportunism are necessary to gain the cards you want. In a six-player game of Valley of the Kings it is almost pointless to even look at the pyramid at the end of your turn because it will look entirely different by the time it gets back to you. This requires players to constantly alter and adapt their strategies, unlike Dominion it is far more difficult to ‘specialise’ in a set method of doing things.

Winning either Dominion or Valley of the Kings requires players to have more points than their opponents by the end of the game. In Dominion’s case the game ends when either one province pile is empty or when either three or four card supply piles are empty. Throughout the game, players have not only been buying cards that give them more money, more actions, more cards etc. but they have also been purchasing province cards that provide points for the end of the game. There is a strict balancing act here though, as the province cards are completely useless until the end of the game. So, players have to juggle gaining points for the end of the game by clogging up their deck with useless cards.

Valley of the Kings flips this system on its head. The game ends when the pyramid and the stock (the deck used to fill the pyramid) are depleted. Then the players check how many points they have in their tombs (a secondary discard pile). The cards in players’ hands or decks are worthless. Players can fill their tombs by taking an entomb action once per turn. This action lets a player bank a card in their hand for end game points by permanently removing it from the game and placing it in their tomb.  There are three types of cards in Valley of the Kings, starter cards, set cards, and unique cards. The starter cards and unique cards in your tomb have a point value printed on them and are worth that much at the end of the game.

The set cards however can generate an obscene amount of points if collected carefully. The set cards used in the game and what constitutes a set are completely fluid depending on how you want to play Valley of the Kings. The base game divides sets up into colours and then subdivides them into objects. For example, the two red sets in the game are mummification tools and sarcophagi. For your first game you could use either of those as your red set. At the end of the game, every set card you have in your tomb of a matching colour provides you with that many points squared. So, three red cards would give you nine points. However, duplicate cards count for nothing.

The supplemental player’s guide talks you through how to construct different sets for different types of games. There are very gentle sets and there are more hostile sets with greater player interaction. However, unless someone chains together a very tricky combination of cards, then the ‘take that’ cards in Valley of the Kings are fairly mild and usually require players to discard cards. There are also diverse ways to structure the sets themselves. My favourite of these are the super sets. In this variant, players remove all duplicate cards and combine all of the cards of a single colour to form one huge set. So sarcophagi and mummification tools would be one huge red set and can provide far more points to players.

The entombing mechanic is a challenging one to master. Entomb too many cards too early and you have nothing to buy better cards with. Start entombing too late and you will definitely lose the game. You can buy cards from the pyramid that allow you to entomb extra cards on your turn. However, these are an unattractive proposition early in the game when the focus is on getting cards that provide more monetary value. The risk is though that they will disappear when they are most needed towards the endgame.

I found this mechanic to be far more streamlined than Dominion’s province cards. As entombing cards force the player to make difficult decisions, “Do I entomb that rubbish starter card for one point? Or do I entomb my Goddess Nut which lets me take the highest cost card from the pyramid for free but bank 12 points with my other set cards?”.

Valley of the Kings and Dominion also differ in their pacing towards the end of the game. I have found that games of Dominion can end very abruptly. All of a sudden a province pile is gone or after a few huge turns supply piles have been emptied. This is fine and introduces a nice touch of push your luck to later turns. Valley of the Kings, however, has a far more predictable endgame as the pyramid on the table needs to be gone before the game can end. This allows players to make a few last-minute entombments before the final card is purchased.